Trip to South Africa, Day 3: Warm showers and Coral trees

Sunday 2^nd September

So did I mention they have no heating in the hotel? They don’t. Today I had a warm shower two times, beginning in the morning after waking up with cold feet, and in the evening after eating out (inside a restaurant, but still getting cold…). I do respect water being a greater commodity to treasure here, but I’d rather not catch a cold unnecessary. This night I will be sleeping with pajamas too.

Today the measurements of the church with the IR camera continued, and among other things we mapped individual uneven quartzite rocks on all sides of the church to see how temperature and topography (struktur typ) was related, with the main result being that downfacing (often shadowed) sides actually getting warmest. This is most probably due to indirect solar heating reflected in the ground (or emitted as heat radiation due to solar heating).

We went to the botanical gardens next to the university grounds, at which point the nature finally showed definite signs of not being Swedish (central Grahamstown being planted with so much plants that could easily be from gardens in northern Europe), with examples of aloe vera, and other tropical plants you usually see on vacation in southern Europe. The Erythrina or Coral tree must also be mentioned; we had a break below one and contemplated to impressions of the day and it being a winter’s day of 20 degrees plus.

From a higher vantage point, Jan noted to me how the previous apartheid division of the city still was evident, with the “white” old central town, townships for the black population (in the upper middle of the picture), and newer home projects (due to the ANC government) to the far right of that.

At the classic student restaurant Rat and Parrot afterwards we had some excellent pizzas (mine at least).
*BREAKING NEWS* You can actually turn on the radiator. I will be back with more of this in the morning news... ;-P